Black and White People Technicolor Dreams
by Cassiel-of-Thursday
Summary: After everything they came so close to, it all fell apart. Jack is gone, and the Winchesters just lost their last bit of family, and Sam knows this time is different. He can see it in Dean's hunched form, in the broken mantra of "Cas will come back," and he can't say otherwise. Trying to hold them both together, and save the world from Lucifer's kid, what will Sam do? Is it enough?
1. Hourglass

Crowley was dead.

Mary was gone.

They'd been playing on a timetable for so long, and now it was over.

It vaguely registered for Dean that Sam wasn't behind him anymore, but he knew Sam was okay. He was okay right?

Lucifer… Was trapped. He was trapped, but it didn't feel like they'd won.

Thunder cracks overhead, and a ripple of power, of warmth, has his barely standing body swaying forward, closer to what was in front of him.

Something that hadn't really registered with him yet.

Maybe _couldn't_ register.

They'd lost too much, and gained too little. Lucifer was trapped, but he wasn't dead. He was trapped and he was an _archangel_. Zachariah had swept Dean into an alternate timeline and he was nothing, weaker than… He couldn't think the name.

"Dean," Sam's voice comes from behind him, and its breathless and frightened, and tired. Dean feels tired. Like he could lie down here and sleep for hours. Maybe he would, that sounded good.

Then he wouldn't have to think about Mary. Or… Or Cas.

"What was he thinking," Dean mumbled. He didn't feel angry, or sad, he felt empty. He felt hollow, like some part of him had been scooped up and removed and he couldn't get it back. He didn't know, with all they'd lost, what part that might be. Was that the part of him that longed for his mother? Or the part that wanted his best friend standing beside him? Was it the part, conflicted as it may be, that felt pained at Crowley's sacrifice? Or Rowena's death?

"Dean we need to go," Sam's hand was heavy and hot on his shoulder, and Dean realized the numbness wasn't just internal, but he couldn't feel his legs beneath him anymore, and his body felt cold, and he wondered if Mary was cold…

Dean leaned forward, grasping the cold metal of the angel blade that had slipped from the sleeve of Cas' coat, fingers brushing cooling flesh of his hand, and Dean laughed. A broken, choked sound.

"Dean?" Sam asked, and now his brother was concerned.

"We fucked up this time Sammy." They had been so close, so _damn_ close to having things; Mary was home, and she was staying, and everything Dean had harbored as a child was out in the open, and she knew about John and they had their mother back, and Cas was _right there_ , even if he was a dumbass with faith in a nephilim he was there. And now they had nothing.

"Dean we have to go, Jack is gone, Kelly is dead, and we aren't sure that spell is going to hold Lucifer."

"Crowley said it would trap him."

"Okay, and he's screwed us before too, there's no point in staying Dean, let's just go." His fingers were still on Cas, gently brushing along his palm, and he could feel the cold dampness of the ground seeping into his jeans, even as the warm breeze came around, and the peace of the night seemed so wrong with everything that had gone wrong, but sometimes, life just goes on around you whether you are ready or not, it moves on and leaves you behind, and it shatters everything you thought you had.

"Where are we gonna go Sammy?" He asks, and he isn't looking at Sam, he doesn't see the way his face crumples at the break in his brother's voice, doesn't see how much it hurts him to watch Dean crumpled at the angel's feet, more contact between them in this moment than there has been in months prior.

"The bunker, a motel, anywhere but Dean, we should go. We need to – we need to give Cas a-"

"No. We can't, Cas comes back," Sam winces. Dean can't think… But he does. He thinks Cas will come back.

"Dean, Chuck is gone, off who knows where with Amara, there's no one to bring him back, and we have to make sure nothing snatches his body." Sam doesn't even want to consider a demon in Cas, because the way Dean is now, he knows he'd let the thing skewer him before he hurt the thing that looked like Cas, he'd let it kill him rather than hurt something that was already dead, some _one_ , Cas was a some _one_ not a something.

"He can do it."

"Dean.." Sam stops, realizing he wasn't going to get anywhere with his brother. He runs a hand down his tired face, and then through his hair, damp with the panic he'd felt earlier confronting Lucifer. "Alright, let's get him in the impala. We can put up warding for now, give him a day, but Dean, I don't think he's coming back."

"He will," he says firmly, and then more quietly, so lowly Sam almost didn't hear him. "I need him."

Sam knows those words aren't for him, aren't even really for Cas, not now, and he knows that's probably the most honest Dean has been with himself about the angel since they met, and he hates that its taken this, these circumstances, for him to say it, for him to start to realize how much he needs him. Cas and Sam were friends, yeah, but they were never what Cas and Dean were, not even close, but only Cas and Dean seemed oblivious to that fact.

"Alright, come on. Let's get him in the Impala," Sam says, dropping a hand on Dean's shoulder, and it takes a moment, but Dean finally stands, tucking the discarded angel blade into his belt loop. He's unsteady on his feet, and he looks down at Cas shaking his head before dropping to one knee in front of him, biting back a choked sob. "Dean –" Sam starts but Dean shakes his head.

"I've got him, I have to get him." He pulls the angel into his arms, and his trench coat falls over the stab wound Lucifer had inflicted, making it almost look peaceful, like Dean was carrying a sleeping Cas, not… not a dead one.

Sam looks on, considering, watching the way his brother staggers slightly under the weight of the angel, but refrains, knowing the look in Dean's eye, knowing that determination wasn't going to be swayed. It's been a look he's seen on his brother more often in recent days than it used to, much more common than it had been when they were growing up, when he was John's soldier, and Sam is reminded how much of a good thing Cas had been for his brother, as a friend or otherwise, and his feet feel like lead.

He knows Dean is right, he knows they fucked up, but they hadn't had any other choice. This was all they had, the only possible plan. Now they were down all of their friends. Everyone. Eileen, Cas, Jo, Ellen, Bobby, Kevin. The only solace was that they'd kept Claire out of everything, they'd kept her safe for Cas, for her father. They had Jody, and they had Claire and Alex.

But compared to what they lost? It was like staring into a dark lake that had once been alight with life, and compared to what Cas had lost? Like looking into the blank expanse of space. He'd lost so much for them, and now he'd lost his life too.

Fuck, the car. Right.

He opens to the back door to the Impala and climbs in, ready to help pull Cas in but Dean stalls, just standing there looking down at the angel, and Sam knows there's something broken in his brother now, and he doesn't know if he's going to be enough to fix it this time, if he'll be enough to hold him together.

A sinking feeling in his gut tells him this will be worse than after the Leviathans.

"Dean," he says, and Dean looks up at him slowly, green eyes filled to the brim with pain before he slides Cas into the seat, but he surprises Sam when he leaves him upright instead of laying him down, and he keeps staring at the display until the click of the seatbelt around the angel's waist resounds in the space. Dean pulls at it until it holds taut and then backs away, closing the door to the car and Sam backs out the other side uneasily.

"Here," Dean says, throwing Sam the keys, and walking back towards the house.

"Where are you going? Dean?!" Sam calls.

"I'm driving his truck. We can't leave it here. Go on," Dean makes a shooing gesture, and against his better judgment, Sam climbs into the Impala, carefully angling the rearview mirror in a way he can't see the slack expression of the corpse in the back seat, and he pulls away.

The gravel crunches under the Impala's tires and Dean climbs into the truck, immediately overwhelmed by the familiar smell and he crumples in the front seat, head falling against the steering wheel with a thud.

"Fuck Cas," he says, sniffling as tears he'd refused to let fall around his brother finally break free and his nose starts running. It isn't his usual cry either, it's not the gentle tear sliding down his face but still held firm composure, he's gone. It's gasping and hiccups and desperate panting and screaming until he throws his fist through the window.

"You dumbass why'd you come after us," he says, and he doesn't know who he's talking to. It's not a prayer, and there's no one there, nothing but the resounding embers of their failure.

He gets back out of the car, goes into the house and grabs a container from the kitchen, siphoning gas off from the tank of the truck.

He paces the length of the downstairs, leaving a trickle of liquid in his wake, taking the stairs one at a time because Sam be damned who gives a fuck anymore. If Lucifer breaks out distance won't save them.

He draws a circle around the bed with it, trailing down the hallway and into the room Kelly had intended to raise a child in. There's an ipad with a cracked screen in the floor beside a table, and _Jack_ on the wall, and Dean throws the container at the wall with a shout.

It doesn't make him feel better.

His eyes fall on the ipad again, and he picks it up before making his way back outside, and lighting a matchbox and dropping it on the deck. The pinprick of fire launches off inside the house, following the trail Dean had left, and he walks away, climbing in the truck and inching forward, clearing the immediate vicinity of the house, remembering how he'd left the gas on in the kitchen to help the fire catch.

He doesn't stay to watch it burn, he's just there, part of him remembering the way everything had started, his mother and a fire, and looking at where they've gotten as the fire catches on curtains and railings, plaster and paint, and its ablaze in his rearview mirror when he finally pulls away, drying tears still on his cheeks.

A few miles down the road Sam can't take it anymore, and he pulls off to lay Cas down, unable to stand the mockery of life Dean had created in the backseat, and wonders just how broken Dean is now, and what the hell they're going to do. He yells and beats the steering wheel because what can he do, what can he do when all their friends are dead and his brother is grieving and their nephilim Cas tried so hard to protect was in the wind. He had to have it together when he got to the bunker, but right now, he didn't. He couldn't. He needed his time to mourn their friend too.

Under the cover of night, both brothers make their way back to the bunker, what used to be damn close to home, and was damn close to being a tomb, to burn their best friend. To finalize the addition to the Winchester body count, and then to… to what? Because there had to be something, because even if everything falls apart, the rest of the world goes on, life goes on without you, whether you are ready or not.

 _The credits keep on rolling_

 _And I'm the last to know_

 _Lifehouse – Hurt this Way_


	2. Hindsight

_Chapter 2_

 _Became my own enemy - I feel the burn,_

 _the weight of a hope that is still in tact_

 _Bracing myself for the impact, holding on_

 _Hindsight - lifehouse_

It's barely dark when Sam gets back to the bunker, dawn rising on the horizon behind him as the impala diverts from its normal parking space, and pulls around to the side, where Sam plans on making the pyre.

It's hard work, especially by himself, but he doesn't want Dean here right now. He knows he can't avoid it for much longer, there's only so much that could delay his brother, but Dean didn't need to be a part of this.

Cas and Sam were friends, and this stabbed him deep in his gut too, but Sam wasn't blind, and he knew without any delusions or doubt, that Cas had meant something more to Dean, whether Dean knew it or not, and their mom, that hurt both of them. Losing them in the same way? For the same damned plan?

He wasn't going to think about that anymore.

The pyre was built by the time the old truck rolled up and Dean stumbled out of it. His eyes were red and puffy, and his gait was awkward, but Sam wasn't going to mention that. He didn't say anything when the first thing his brother did was walk up to him, and wrap him in a tight hug, breath shaking and grip firm.

He didn't say anything when the glance toward the impala brought a wave of fresh tears to his brother's face. He just held tighter, until Dean was the one that pulled away.

He was a little bit surprised when Dean didn't say anything about the pyre, considering the way he had propped Cas up in the car, he hadn't imagined Dean would take well to the idea of burning their best friend, but maybe he wasn't quite as broken by this as Sam had thought?

"You don't have to be here for this Dean," he finally says, pulling the car door open to get… to get the corpse.

"I don't think we should burn him," Dean says, and Sam falters.

"Why?"

"He needs that vessel, for when he comes back. Gadreel healed him once, maybe we can find another angel, or make Jack fix him, I dunno yet but he'll come back and he'll need his vessel."

"Dean," Sam starts, but backtracks what he was going to say, he wasn't going to be able to reason with Dean right now, he was too far in denial at this point, "he could get possessed in the mean time, and I think fixing the angel part would be the hard part, I don't think an angel or Jack or even God would have a problem reassembling a human, Cas was vesseless twice before wasn't he? And he came back?" Dean nods slowly. "But seriously Dean, you don't have to be here for it."

"You aren't doing this alone Sammy," Dean says, and his voice cracks and something more, if it were possible, inside of Sam breaks, but he nods. He allows it when Dean brushes his shoulder and gets Cas out of the car instead, but this time he accepts help getting him up on the actual pyre.

Dean was the one that lit the flame.

Sam wished more than anything, this wasn't what they were doing as the sun broke horizon, creating a sort of halo around their blaze.

It's surreal. Burning an angel. Though in reality, they don't really burn any different than any of the other friends they've had to give funerals for. But there's something different this time, different even than when their dad had died, but he can't place quite why.

"I know this is hard for you." Sam tries, it's a pitiful effort and he knows it, but he can't swallow the words. It's an 'I'm there for you, I understand,' and that's what he needs to convey right now.

"Yeah, well. He'll be back. He always is."

Shit. He'd thought Dean was past denial, that he'd accepted Cas was gone.

"Dean-"

"Lucifer killed him before, he came back then. He can come back."

Except this time, God isn't around, archangels aren't around, hell even heaven itself had pretty much turned their backs on the problem. Lucifer had been out of their hair and they didn't care anymore. Not that they ever cared about Cas much, someone they called their brother, but never bothered to give a damn about.

Angels were dicks.

Except for the one that died for them.

"He- he didn't get it did he," Dean said, and his voice was so quiet Sam barely heard him.

"Get what?"

"That he meant something to us. He attacked Lucifer, to buy us time," Dean looked up at him, eyes burning with the reflection of the embers before looking back at the remains of their friend, "he thought that was all his life was worth. Fuck Sammy," and Dean crumbled.

On his knees in the dirt, sobbing. Broken, dry heaving, gasping, despaired crying. Sam had never seen his brother so vulnerable. So open to the grief he was feeling, so raw. Sam collapsed next to him, wrapping up his older brother, letting him grip the jacket on his shoulders.

"He knew, Dean. He just- Cas wanted to protect you," and if possible, it made Dean sob harder. Sam knew it wouldn't make him feel better, but he couldn't think Cas didn't know they cared at all, because he did, he had to. He had to didn't he?

Eventually, Dean had calmed down, the flames had died out, and all that was left was ashes.

No trenchcoat. No Cas. Just ash.

Dean had gone to bed with a bottle of whiskey.

Sam hadn't slept.

He'd been in the library, looking for more on alternate dimensions, since they knew Dorothy and Charlie had gotten to Oz, perhaps there was something else. He dug through until evening was falling and he realized he hadn't seen his brother, or even heard him, throughout the day.

"Dean?" Sam asked, hand poised above the wood of his brother's door. He knocked a couple times, solid hard thunks, but there was no answer. He pushed open the door, only to find an immaculately made bed, and his brother nowhere to be found. "Shit."

Before he fell to total panic, he realized there was one more place he should check, and he headed down the hall, to room 15.

This time he didn't knock, and was met with the dejected hunch of his brother's shoulders as he sat on the bed the angel had probably never used, in the room he probably barely frequented. With what Dean had said last night, he wondered if the reason he was never here, was because he didn't really know the Winchesters wanted him there.

If he continued to leave on missions because he thought _that_ was what they wanted instead.

They really had messed up, and had little to no idea.

"Dean?" For a second he doesn't say anything, just sniffs before speaking.

"Yeah?" He croaks, "fuck Sammy."

"I know Dean," Sam says, "but we have to keep moving, keep trying."

"Why?" He says, finally turning around to face Sam, eyes red rimmed, mostly empty whiskey bottle dangling from his fingers.

"Why-what do you mean why?" Sam splutters, not believing the words coming from his brother's mouth.

"I mean why. All our family is gone. We dragged Cas down, we got Charlie killed, Bobbie, Jo and Ellen, we got nothin left. So I'm going to drink, and try and fucking forget how much we've messed up."

"Then think about how much we've saved instead. Think about Jody, Claire, all the innocent people we helped, the times we've saved the world, think about that instead!" Sam pleads but Dean just lays back, the bottle clattering to the floor and spilling the remains of its amber contents.

"Let it be someone else's problem for once. That's what you used to want to do Sam."

"Because I wanted to live my life not because I was giving up! Just yesterday you were convinced Cas was coming back, I'm not sure we can't save Mom too. But we have to try."

"Cas isn't coming back. He's gone Sam. And that's on me too." He turns over then, away from his brother. Sam throws his arms up, unwilling to believe, unable to comprehend, how broken his brother is. He knew his brother blamed himself for a lot, but he didn't imagine it was this deep rooted.

"It's not your fault Dean." Sam tries. Dean pushes himself up then, stumbling across the room to shove at Sam's chest.

"Don't tell me that bullshit. Everything bad that's happened to him has been because of me! I was so blinded by everything that was always going on, civil war, the darkness, I didn't see it. But it makes sense now," Dean laughs, rubbing a hand over his mouth, but the maniacal sound kept bubbling through until he kept talking, "I get it now. Sam, I managed to break a damn Angel. How many people can say that? Now he's dead too, like everything else good in our life!"

"Dean, Cas made those choices, he chose to help us, you can't- you can't possibly think that's all your fault."

"He was fine for- for forever before he pulled my ass out of hell, then I went and fucked everything up for him!" He punctuates his sentence by shoving Sam again, "how is that not on me?!"

"You remember what we fought for Dean? Do you? Free will!" he says, shoving Dean back, not hard, but with the liquor he'd drank he stumbled enough to where his legs hit the bed, and he fell forward to his knees, and that seemed to change his demeanor from anger back to grief. "Dean he made those choices, and I doubt he regrets it." _God he wishes Cas were here, he's the only thing that could possibly help right now, that could change Dean's mind._

"Sammy I need him," Dean practically whimpers, head hanging low and shoulders trembling. "I need him to know- there's so much shit I should have said to him, and-and now I can't."

It takes everything in Sam not to try and reassure Dean with empty words, with promises he can't guarantee aren't false, with hope he doesn't want to lay foundations to, he wants to say they'll get Cas back, they'll get mom back, but he can't bring himself to do it. For himself or for Dean, even if he has every intention of trying. Even if he thinks Dean will try when the grief lays off a little, be it deals or trying to bring God back to Earth, he doesn't know, or at least that's what he thought before he walked into what used to be Cas's room.

Having heard what Dean said, now he's less sure Dean will try, he's stepped into a depressed acceptance, but damn it all if Sam won't try and pull him out of it.

 _ **Lay it down, I've always been with you, hear me now**_

 _ **With all that's within you, be my Savior**_

 _ **And I'll be your downfall, oh oh**_

 _ **Downfall – Matchbox 20**_

Author's note: So this was really friggen hard to write. Way harder than I imagined, which is why it's a little on the short side. After this though we'll step a little bit away from Dean's grief, and move on to plot stuff.


End file.
